AW: Here's a plan

[Stephan Müller]

> Proposed OpenBIOS Boot Specification
>
> Pre-boot:
>  OpenBIOS performs the following steps:
>
> Switch the CPU to 32-bit protected mode.
> Detect the DRAM and set chipset registers accordingly.
> Enable devices on the Super I/O (floppy, COM ports, etc.)

* initialize VGA-BIOS (call it), but this has to be done in Realmode, right?
a little problem....
> Scan the PCI bus and allocate requested resources.
> Look for known boot devices:  floppy, IDE, ATAPI, various
> SCSI cards, and anything else that might be bootable.
> Select one of these devices.  Read the first sector into
> memory and jump to it.
>  I use a $500 ROM emulator, connected to my workstation
>
> by a serial cable.  A cheaper alternative would be to insert
> a ZIF socket between the ROM chip and the motherboard.  Boot
> up with the "good chip", swap in the "test chip" (after the
> good chip has copied itself to shadow RAM), flash your code
> onto the test chip, and reboot.

i can get one for about 150DM (~100$) It's from the german
electronic-service "ELV"
perhaps a good idea.
>  If your test motherboard has one of those wafer-thin PSOP
>
> flash chips with microscopic pins, forget it.  Intel loves to
> make flash-proof motherboards, and then code the BIOS to reject
> any non-Intel CPU.

i know these boards. (Intel Endeavor and so on.) :(

Ciao,
    Stephan [SpaceNet-Systems]